New Schedule

Today I had to be to work by 7:30. I made it by 7:15 - took me just about an hour. I wasn't sure how it would work with the traffic that time of the morning. I don't see why so many people go to work that early. Usually the first part of I-5 is clear and it doesn't slow till Boeing field. Well evidently traffic is in different areas that early in the morning. As soon as I got on I-5 it was packed. It kept moving but never that fast. Was happy to know it still only took me an hour. I think I will definitely have to check into the bus system. Quite sure I'd save money - no gas... I will have to wait a little while - till I get paid. Which will happen this week! Planning on going to Spaghetti Factory to celebrate on Friday. Two good things about my schedule are that I get home by 5 or so, and I get to see my roommate when she takes her lunch/supper in the evening. My previous schedule did not allow that. I'd get home ~7:15 and she would already have had lunch.

Today I leaned a bit about the first steps in the process of coating the plates with proteins. We had to weigh protein from different foods. If you have ever had to deal with weighing powders and the fun part of static - that's what I got to deal with. It seemed really bad today too. Maybe it will be better tomorrow. Basic process from what I understand so far is that we purify the protein then determine how much is there using the Lowery method. Then based on that we make solutions to the optimal concentration to be put in the wells of plates so that they can then be used for testing whether or not someone's serum contains antibodies for those proteins.
One bad thing is that they do this about once a year and evidently who ever did it last year didn't note when the finished off a bottle of protein so we are missing quite a few and will have to wait for them to come in. We can continue on with other ones but if they don't come in in a timely manner t won't be a good thing. We only have about 2 months worth of proteins to coat plates. We are keeping good track of which ones are low or used up this time. :) My supervisor thinks it will take us a month to get it all done so going by what she says we should be fine.

Tomorrow

There is a white bored in the lab that you are supposed to look at first thing everyday. Since I'm still in training I haven't looked at it first thing because the person training me tells me what to do. So there is not need to look to see what it might say for me to do. Well I did look at the bored this afternoon and say my name and the other new girls name on it. :) Was just informing people that tomorrow we would take over pipetting when we got to work. Thought it was cool that I was on there and my name was spelled right.

Other than tomorrow - what happened today? Nothing to horribly exciting did learn more about the automated process. Got to change fluids and check to make sure it was running properly. That the liquid was being dispensed properly and the washers were working right. (This is one machine that is used http://www.mtxlsi.com/multidrop.htm its pretty cool.) Still have lots to learn. :)

Second Day

Today went better. No mistakes. :). We learned about the automated system that runs tests. I don't know everything about it yet but some... It's good experience to have.

I tried a new way to get to I-5 today. I think it is a faster/shorter route. But traffic was evil going through Seattle due to an earlier accident involving a Semi. It almost made me late to work. Was glad it didn't.

So far the only thing I'm not enjoying about work is that I am not supposed to wear jeans to work. I have plenty pairs of khaki pants but feel like I'm wearing the same thing over every day (strange that I don't feel that way when I wear jeans every day). I think I might have to make a trip to Old Navy :).

First Day

Today was my first day at work. My schedule for the next two weeks is 10am-6:30pm. Although today we ('we' being me and the other girl they hired at the same time as me) didn't finish till 8:30 but we will get to leave early on Friday :). After that I will soon be changed to an early schedule so that come time for the sun to set early I will be off early on Fridays (7:30-4 I think...). Not sure on the specifics but they are willing to work with me from what I've gathered.

Anyway what did I do today? Well first we went over a huge hand book. Had a lot of info, some on safety, some on ELISA (the procedure they use to test for presence of antibodies against food allergens), HIPAA (confidentiality stuff), and general allergy information along with some scientific papers. After that we had a half hour lunch. Then we got to practice pipetting water into 384 well plates. I'm used to messing with 96 well plates it is quite a bit different (Volume of a well in a 96 well plate is 370 ul, in a 384 it is 100 ul so it is a lot smaller). We got to use a nifty pipette... one plunger but it has a row of 16 tips. Were told accuracy is more important than speed... still need more practice.

We got another break - ended up getting 45 minutes - went to talk to head person about tax papers and what not... but they weren't ready so we went to Starbucks and then came back (I really shouldn't have had coffee... I'm not really tired yet... that's bad I need to go to sleep so I can get up tomorrow and not fell groggy just think what will happen when I have to be ready to leave by 6:30 to get to work in time... yuck.). Talked to the head lady about the tax papers and the employee handbook then went back to work.

We then got to dilute patient serum in buffer to be used for tests tomorrow. I hope they all turn out good. I messed up a couple of times but caught it. Was told by the person training me that it was good that I caught it, but I still felt stupid for making stupid mistakes. But all in all guess it wasn't that bad... I am going back tomorrow so couldn't have done that bad. :).

So work environment is nice. People seem nice. Person who started with me seems nice. Although for some reason she reminds me of a girl I went to school with in GP - just because of her build, height, and hair length/style. This job definately seems like something I will enjoy.

Visit from the parents and resulting chaos

My parents came up to visit and bring the rest of my stuff from 'home'. It was good to see them even though they weren't here that long. My dad helped me put shelves in one of box type cupboards and my mom bought me a house warming gift at Wal-Mart, spice rack/lazy Susanne with two shelves. It is nice having my stuff back but I actually sent some back with them. I have limited space living in an apt. with a roommate. If I had my own place I'd be fine - set up shelves in the living room with my crap, or be able to take over all the closets. As it is I think we will be fighting for room in the storage closet off of our deck. :). I am trying to get my stuff put away quickly as my roommate will be bringing her stuff up in a couple of weeks. The living room is strewn with my stuff. I can't believe how many school papers I still have - did I really think I'd need to go back and reference old papers? It was fun looking through them but I think it is time to get rid of them. Time to get back to the mess.